I started work today on an iPhone project with a friend. I figured it would take only a day to get to a reasonable 1.0. I’ve only put in about a half day on it so far, but at this point I’m pretty sure it’s actually a two day project.
Looked at one way, that’s a 200% estimation overflow. But more realistically, it means it was pretty small and I tackled it in the wrong way. I had to refactor some code early that I left alone for too long. I should’ve written in the right way to begin with, and I should have realized it was wrong sooner, and I should have stopped trying to make it work.
More pragmatically, maybe I should have known better. But, of course, I didn’t. And that’s okay! I know better now.
What’s my point in posting this?
Mostly, it’s this: iPhone development isn’t nearly as hard as I’ve made it out to be. Useful applications can actually be quite small and still be useful. Simple things are simple. When they’re not simple, it’s time to fix something.
I’ll post a link here when I finish the project. It’ll be a bit before I can devote another day to it. But I’m excited by its usefulness, its simplicity, and the idea of having an app in the App Store of my own.